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Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Jay Z - Magna Carta... Holy Grail - ALBUM REVIEW

Jay Z is arguably the most popular and commercially
successfully Hip-hop artist of all time. Coming from humble beginnings as a
drug dealer in the projects of Brooklyn, New York, Jay Z has made it just about
as far as any rapper could possibly imagine. Right now Jay Z is worth about
$500 million, he is a part owner of the Brooklyn Nets, he has his own Record
label, and not to mention his newest hobby, Sports Agency.

Of course
when things started to blow up for Jay Z a few years ago, many fans assumed it
was the end of his career in music. For years Jay Z, if not loved, was
respected as a talented MC who was notorious for bragging about his success
through excessively complex and sometimes outlandish hyperbole. The one thing
that has made his records like Reasonable
Doubt, The Blueprint, or The Black Album very successful has to
be his production. Jay Z’s music has great production and that can’t be denied.
Whether the beats are explosive like on “99 Problems” or more commercially
appealing like on “Empire State of Mind”, the way Jay’s music sounds has given
a large amount of core mainstream fans as well as the music “nerds” who feel
that he is unarguably one of the best rappers of all time as his record and
success can attest to.

Jay Z’s
newest album Magna Carta… Holy Grail
was marketed in a pretty new and unusual way. Samsung’s mobile company
immediately bought 1 million copies of the album so that they could give it
away to Samsung Galaxy users for free. This allowed MCHG to go platinum before anyone had even heard a track off of it.
There were no singles to promote it. Only vaguely interpretive commercials with
Jay Z and his collaborators in his million dollar studio talking about things
that no one could care about. I was fairly surprised because there wasn’t
really any hype on this album and every Jay Z album that I could remember had
mountains of hype even if they really weren’t anything special. Honestly, Magna Carta… Holy Grail isn’t anything
groundbreaking in respects to the rest of Jay Z’s discography and it almost
seems to me that Jay Z was careless and hasty in the making of this album.
Something that usually is very unlike him.

Immediately
from the start, I was pretty impressed. Justin Timberlake’s collaboration on
“Holy Grail” was excellent. His part during the slow, dramatic introduction was
something new and I was excited to see where the track would go. However, all I
got was over the top trap style hi hats with a generic beat, weak flow, and of
course the horrible Nirvana reference that would have Kurt Cobain spinning in
his grave. I was not impressed with this track and I felt like Jay Z is
definitely capable of better things lyrically and musically.

However, I
did love “Picasso Baby”. The beat is heavy and pretty rough just like “99
Problems”. You can tell Rick Rubin had his hand in this beat. Like I said the
beat sounded really dope. Jay Z raps about something other than fame and money.
I personally didn’t know he likes art but the message is kind of meaningless
because it sounds like he’s doing it as a rich person’s hobby. The beat changes
towards the middle of the song and that’s when it sounds REALLY great. This
beat is awesome and it’s something I can genuinely enjoy. Doesn’t even matter
if the message is hollow or pointless.

The next
few tracks were everything that was wrong with this album. “Tom Ford” and
“Fuckwithmeyouknowigotit” featuring Rick Ross were mindless, they were
pointless and they just sounded very generic. Tom Ford’s beat isn’t special.
Jay Z’s rapping is all nonsensical whether he’s talking about wine and Paris
(again) or hashtags and 140 characters. Also “FUTW”. Fine Jay Z, I’ll let you
be great. What does this track even mean. At this point in the album, I
definitely felt that the production, lyrics and overall presentation of the
album was rushed.

Two of my
other favorites that kind of were the saving grace for this album were “Oceans”
and “Somewhereinamerica”. Frank Ocean sounds incredible on “Oceans” and I have
always thought he is the best at doing hooks for hip-hop artists. Also, Jay’s
rapping here is a bit more on point. The instrumentation fits his stlye a bit
more and overall it just felt right. Somewhereinamerica wasn’t amazing but the
instrumentation was very cool and Jay Z had a pretty funny line about
Instagram. Also, the shots at racism in America were very subtle as are most of
Jay Z’s truly significant meanings in his tracks.

But once
again, whenever Jay Z gets intimate or interesting he goes right back to being
asinine and over the top with his bragging. For instance “Crown”.Coming into this album, there were a few
topics I just KNEW Jay Z would brag about or at least bring up. These would be
his deal with Samsung, his sports agency, and of course his daughter, Blue Ivy.
On “Crown” he deals with the Samsung Deal and more obnoxiously the Roc Nation
Sports agency by saying “Scott Boras you over baby, Robinson Cano you coming
with me.” or even “It’s a new day hit up KD.” These are all things about Jay
Z’s personal life that I don’t particularly care to hear about at all. I get
it. His thing is bragging about how rich he is and his recent success has only
caused him to do it even more on both The
Blueprint 3 and this latest release, however it’s getting a bit tired. If
he’s really as great as he says he is, then he should prove it. He should get
serious and release music that’s worth listening to or else I won’t listen.

There also
isn’t much pop appeal on MCHG. Maybe
the opening track, “Heaven”, or even “Part II (On the Run)” with Beyonce but
those pretty much seem like the only songs with even a shroud of radio
playability. But even those would quite honestly be a bit of a stretch for pop
radio. I also know that a lot of hip-hop die hards won’t really thoroughly
enjoy anything that Jay Z puts out just because of his reputation. Because of
this I really have to wonder what Jay Z was thinking with this new record. Did
he do it just because of the Samsung deal? Just to rewrite the rules? If so I
would say that marketing a mediocre album in a new way doesn’t make it any
better.

Magna Carta… Holy Grail is a
disappointment. It isn’t bad and in fact it’s pretty decent. However, the
potential of what could have been will always cloud what is already on here.
Maybe if Jay Z focused and did not rush as much, he would have a better record.
There are great tracks like “Picasso Baby” and “Oceans” so I know that he is
still capable of doing these kind of things. Also the short little interludes “Versus”
and “Beach is Better” both sounded great and had they been longer and turned
into actual concepts rather than mere snippets, this album could have greatly
benefited.

I’m mainly
disappointed because I feel as if Jay Z is turning to music as his side hobby
when he’s tired of being an entrepreneur and that is never how it should be. I
think that all great music must be genuine must be passionate and must have a
clear driven purpose. Otherwise it is not truly great. For these reasons, we
will never get another Reasonable Doubt or
Blueprint. This isn’t because Jay Z
is no longer capable of these kinds of projects but because he lacks the time
and frankly he doesn’t really seem to care. And maybe this is a good thing. Jay
Z has a had a great career and he should focus on his business pursuits
completely rather than half assing this “music” thing that brought him to where
he is today.